KAPOW! Coffee Bar: We Didn’t Hate It

Ka-Pow! is a coffee candy bar made with cocoa butter, sugar and coffee. It’s like a chocolate bar without the chocolate! Ka-Pow! came to our attention after it landed on the desk at Sprudge.com Bay Area HQ. The bar we sampled used the Four Barrel Ethiopia Yirgacheffe Biloya, and we were surprised by the experience to say the least. After doing a little light googling, we discovered this buried Ollie Strand NYT article from June:

The idea behind the confection is to treat coffee beans like they’re cocoa beans: coffee provides the color and flavor (helped by some sugar), while cocoa butter provides the texture. It looks like chocolate, snaps like chocolate and melts like chocolate. But it has the full, rich, lingering flavor of coffee.

That is, it has the flavor of beans from small-batch coffee producers like Extracto Coffeehouse and Roaster,Heart Roasters, Ristretto Roasters and Stumptown Coffee Roasters. And because KA-POW! is only made with single-origin beans, each batch is distinct: there’s the musky fruit of the Ethiopian Sidamo Guji from Ristretto Roasters, the clean cherry of the Guatemala Finca Antigua Buenavista from Stumptown Coffee Roasters. As their coffees change, so will KA-POW!

Reviews were mixed at headquarters. It ranged from “that’s really interesting!” to “oh my god, that texture is awful.” It seemed that the bars biggest failing is the texture, which is granular and buttery and not entirely pleasant. Do we want to snack on these little babies every day? No. Was our response a resounding “Hated It!”? Not exactly. It’s definitely worth your taste test.